


Stories of Heroics

by ValkyrieN7



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:20:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28839207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValkyrieN7/pseuds/ValkyrieN7
Summary: Short stories on several articles found in the Codex and Emails of ME3, these incidents give a glimpse of the battlefield situations during the Reaper War.I thought of a few scenarios off the top of my head, but I am open to suggestions. Race, class, battlefield - preferably based on canon; stuff I can find on fandom ME wikis and the like.
Comments: 5





	1. Chapter 1

** Stories of Heroics: Extraordinary Battlefield Accounts of the Reaper War **

_ Alliance News Network Desk _

_ In collaboration with Khalisah Bint Sinan Al-Jilani, Westerlund News _

_ Simulations by Solik Vass, Galactic Broadcasting Corporation _

_“Never before have so many come together from all quarters of the galaxy. But never before have we faced an enemy such as this. The Reapers will show us no mercy; we must give them no quarter. They will terrorize our populations; we must stand fast in the face of that terror. They will advance until our last city falls, but we will not fall. We will prevail. Each of us will be defined by our actions in the coming battle. Stand fast. Stand strong. Stand together.”_

_-Admiral Steven Hackett, prelude to the battle of Earth_

The great galactic war, the war for survival of every sentient being. Spanning thousands of systems in hundreds of clusters, impacting trillions of beings all over. The Reaper War.

Stories of heroism and sacrifice, courage and compassion, tales that induce tears and baffle any sense of rationality – that is the focus of this feature. We bring to you several beings, who saved countless lives and dealt enormous blows to the enemy, often making the ultimate sacrifice for their teammates, their loved ones, and for the sake of all life.

These are stories of courage. These are stories of tragedy. These are stories of miracles.

  1. “O Blue Rose of Illium” – Urdnot Charr, Krogan Commandos
  2. “Just make them pay for it” – Kal’Reegar vas Neema, Migrant Fleet Marine Specialists
  3. “They’re just happy we’re not burning it down” – Matthew Brown and Melanie Baxter, Combat Applications Group
  4. “We’ll give that Reaper something else to shoot at” – Neno Raxirian, Hierarchy Air Force
  5. “Victory....at any cost” – Tarquin Victus, Blackwatch
  6. “When the time comes, we will fight with you” – Shiala T’Armal, Armali Commandos
  7. “Can I have a gun?” – Aeian T’Goni, Thessian Republican Guard
  8. “Don’t worry, we will hold the line” – Jornal Tolan, Special Tasks Group
  9. “This unit proposes a diversion” – Unit 4276, Geth Corps
  10. “This seems like a good way to die” – Aresh Aghdashloo, Elysian Colonial Guards
  11. "We have to count on the volus for ground troops?" - Lorik Ordinix, 52nd Reconnaissance Legion
  12. "I kill any Cerberus team I can find. If I run into you, don't expect any different" - Arthur Toombs and Karl Dosker, Alliance Intelligence Service




	2. Charr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the first entry in the "Stories of Heroics" series, let us revisit the love that transcended hundreds of Mass Relay jumps, during a galactic war. This is the love story that brought billions to tears. This is the story of Sergeant Urdnot Charr of the krogan commandos.

The surface weather on Utukku was barely habitable by galactic standards. Violent weathers, temperatures raising from 213 to 343 degrees Kelvin, and constant sandstorms did not make it much of a desirable place for any race. Except for the Rachni, of course.

After the last Rachni queen was set free from a Noverian laboratory in 2183, the insectoid sapient race took to seclusion, hiding amongst the stars from Citadel races. They established a colony and focused on repopulating – occasionally making thralls out of a mining colony to make them a couple hive ships, or ‘donate’ resources, and keeping their existence a secret. One of their colonial outposts were on the Mulla Xul star system. This deep Attican Traverse system had little of interest to anybody, so less so that in fact the last time a starship landed anywhere on Xul was during the Inusannon cycle; some 150,000 years ago.

The Reaper invasion, of course, changed all that. One of the scout ships of the Reapers found proof of Rachni existence surrounding the outpost, and soon an entire invasion force poured upon the planet. The queen at first tried to fight the invaders off, and then to flee; both attempts failed. The Reaper forces captured her, brought her to the underground caves of Utukku, and forced her on a breeding spree. They converted the living brood warriors into portable artillery known as Ravagers.

It had been long debated how the allied forces found out about Utukku and the Reaper operation there, until 2199, when a former asari thrall of the Rachni queen wrote a feature on the Extranet at the queen’s orders. The article shed light on the long history of the Rachni, and claimed that it was the Rachni's own decision, defying all logic, to ask help from outside. The Rachni, first abused by the Prothean Empire before their sentience, afterwards driven to extinction, and lately bred by the Reapers, largely thought they were alone in a hostile galaxy filled with cruel aliens, until the last queen’s contact with Commander Jon Shepard on Noveria.

The Rachni realized they would not survive without outside help, but no council species would spare units for Utukku when Palaven and Earth was burning. Not that any council species would survive the caves, anyway. And so, through a thrall, the Rachni asked for help from their archenemies – the Krogan.

Colonel Jorgal Thurak, the commander of a group of hodgepodge specialists and mercenaries – colloquially known as the krogan commandos, brought the matter to krogan chieftain Urdnot Wrex. Wrex understood the importance of the scenario at once – the Reapers having access to rachni troops would give them a tremendous advantage over any battlefield. He did not waste any time discussing with other races, instantly sanctioning a clandestine strike on Utukku. The mission was given to Dranek company, an elite unit amongst krogan commandos, made up of mostly Nakmor and Weyrloc warriors, with a few Jorgal and Urdnot specialists spread out among them. The unit was led by Major Urdnot Dagg.

In this unit there was an unusually pacifist krogan engineer, married to an asari with a child on the way, named Urdnot Charr.

Charr, who left his comfortable life as a transport technician on the asari hub world of Illium, had joined the krogan armed forces a few months prior. Charr had recently won the favor of his then-girlfriend, Ereba I’Silina, a sales rep for Memories of Illium accessories corporation. He wrote several poems keeping krogan loresong traditions, however, Ereba was not convinced she should be in a relationship him. Only after some advice from a helpful stranger did Ereba agree to commit. To her surprise, they had a blissful life on Illium, getting themselves an apartment on the lower floors of Dantius Towers. Amongst their busy schedules of a car mechanic and a sales representative, they visited restaurants, had romantic walks down the vista, and even had a vacation planned at the resort planet of Nevos. The vacation never came to be. 

After a call by Wrex to all krogan taking refuge among the stars to return to the homeworld, Charr brought his now-wife, Ereba, to the barren wasteland of Tuchanka and offered his services to the Urdnot administration. Due to his immense value as a qualified engineer, he was quickly put on support duty for commando operations.

After he showed reasonable combat skills, he was promoted to sergeant and assigned to 1st Platoon Dranek Co., much at the horror of Ereba. Charr had proved himself in combat on several previous missions in and around Tuchanka. Against batarian and Cerberus forces, where the sheer brute force of the krogan berserkers were inadequate, Charr was instrumental in snatching victory for Dranek company. In a unit full of heavy infantry chugging Striker grenade rifles, Cyclone and Revenant machineguns, and a wide array of shotguns, Charr was unique – carrying an old Thunderbolt sniper rifle and an assortment of drones and tools. He was often the sole member of Dranek with any tech-war abilities, able to combat Cerberus troops on equal footing. His rise through the ranks was not surprising, and neither was his assignment to a deadly, near suicidal mission.

The krogan arrived via a confiscated Athabasca-class freighter over the space of Utukku on April, 2186. After initial reconnaissance, Major Dagg decided there were no threats on the planet – going as far as calling Wrex “an old imbecile, unworthy of his hump”. Only after serious interdictions from Charr did he agree on going groundside. The engineer made sure they were sufficiently equipped – based on what little anti-rachni strategy the krogan had. Every team member brought an M-451 Firestorm flamethrower – a two-thousand-year-old design in continuous service since the Rachni Wars. During the wars, the flamethrower was used extensively by krogan shock troops against the rachni fortifications; the few manuals that were available still suggested every soldier be given one. Along with the flame guns, the commandos carried various types of shotguns – Claymores, Graals, Ruzads and the occasional batarian AT-12 Raiders; foregoing long guns for the mission. This would later prove to be their downfall.

Calamity hit as soon as they were in front of the cave entrances. Marauders detonated emplaced IEDs under sinkholes, burying many krogan alive; those who were not were swarmed by husks and eaten raw. A flanking force of husks and cannibals led the entire krogan party inside the cave complexes and then the marauders collapsed all entry points with more explosives.

Major Dagg realized they had been trapped. He fought a defensive battle, spreading inside the complex, trying to fortify their positions; but each time his attempts were foiled. Marauder squad-leaders, after realizing that their enemies were woefully unprepared for long-range combat, deployed ravagers to hail indirect fire on krogan warriors while staying way out of the range of their shotguns. The desperate krogan could do nothing as their shields and armor were whittled away by artillery fire, followed by sudden swarms of husks and cannibals mobbing them to the ground. Quite a few died from making hopeless charges at the enemy, their shields and armor blown away long before they could get enemies within shotgun range.

Charr was one of the few commandos who held his line, calmly taking down enemies with his sniper rifle, occasionally deploying gun drones to support other commandos, saving whatever lives he could. After the initial disaster, he and Dagg led the surviving warriors to regroup.

Of the 200 commandos that were deployed, only 47 were left alive after the initial melee. Dagg had lost his second and third-in-commands, most of his flamers, and some of his best biotics. It was all too clear that the company was in deep trouble and none of them would make it out alive. Dagg decided to do the most krogan thing – push forward towards the central chamber, blowing out as much defense infrastructures as they could, so that the next team would have a better chance at accomplishing the mission.

Charr, as the sole surviving engineer, was tasked with covering their rear with booby traps and IEDs. Teaming up with a senior sergeant from Weyrloc and two junior commandos from Nakmor, Charr deftly laid whatever explosives he had in a systematic fashion, making sure it would cause maximum damage.

Probably that is when the fatalism hit the young engineer. He realized, he would die in this toxic cave of Utukku, his body would rot away in acidic fissures or worse – be jury-rigged to fight his own blood, his _krannt ­_ – and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He would never see Ereba again. For the sake of her peace, he started crafting a message on his combat omni-tool. It is this message that would later bring billions to tears.

Soon, the final offensive began. One after one, the krogan commandos fell, until only a handful of them were cornered in a crevice near the central chamber. Amongst the remaining commandos there was a severely wounded Dagg, Charr and a couple others. Charr was almost done with his message, and he read it out to his comrades. It read –

_“O Blue Rose of Illium, if these humble words reach you, then I have joined my ancestors.  
  
My dream was to be by your side, a weed beside your beauty, twining together in the warm Tuchanka sun.  
  
But if my last days must be with krannt instead of kindness, still, I will remember the perfume of your scent and the soft touch of your petals.  
  
Let my broken bones build a wall around your garden, so you and the flower we planted together can grow safe and strong.”_

It is suspected that Sergeant Charr died not long after his last recitation. His body found crumpled inside an Utukku crevice by the relief team, led by the legendary Aralakh Company. Some say then-captain (now the first krogan Spectre) Urdnot Grunt was the one to retrieve the data-pad, and in other sources it is said that Commander Jon Shepard was the one who retrieved the message. It was Shepard who brought the message to the Citadel and presented it to Ereba I’Silina in somber respect.

After the Reaper War, this extraordinary display of love from a warlike krogan found its way to the extranet forums. It took galactic media by storm, and thousands of reporters wanted screen time with Ereba. Ereba herself was extremely reluctant on any comments, and she has since retired to a remote asari farming colony. She gave birth to her and Charr’s daughter not long after the launching of the Crucible, and their daughter is currently attending the University of Serrice.

The krogan have named a city after Charr, but he has gotten much of his posthumous attention from humans, asari and quarians – several adaptations of his and Ereba’s love story has hit the bookstores and theatres alike. One of the quotes from the romance novel seemed to portray him the best-

“ _Reptilian scales flew from the hero’s chest, and a great krogan warrior died with his lover’s name on his lips._

_On their bones, a peace was formed. They gave their today for our tomorrow, died with krannt so that we may live with kindness.”_


End file.
